KARNAK DAYS she had cast aside, with all that it stood for, upon the death of her husband, Read her haughty dedication of this obelisk, cut in hieroglyphic characters upon the four sides of the lower part: "I was sitting in my palace> I was thinking of my Creator, when my heart urged me to make for Him two obelisks whose points reached unto the sky, in the noble hall of columns which is between the two great pylons of Thothmes I. "When they see my monument in after years, let them exclaim: 'This it is that was made by me/ This was made under my order, this mountain fashioned of gold. I rule over this land like the son of Isis; I am powerful even as the son of Nu when the sun reposes in the Morning Boat and remains in the Evening Boat. It shall exist for ever, like unto the North Star. Of a truth these are two huge obelisks brightened by My Majesty with gold for the sake of my Father, Amen, and out of love, in order to perpetuate his name, that they might stand erect in the Temple precinct for ever. They are of one solid block of granite, without any joint or division in them." I went to the great gate that once led to the Temple of Mut, constructed by the second of the Ptolemies, but now leads to palm-fringed fields. Its lovely outline and embellished surfaces held my gaze again and again. Above its lintel the sculptured, winged sun played, according to ancient thought, a protective part in warding off the entry of evil influences. I rested in a red rectangular room upon the wall of which was inscribed the name of Philip of Macedon, whose coin, perfectly preserved by the kindly earth, I had found only the other day some ten miles away. And so I picked my way among the mined courtyards and broken sanctuaries of Karnak; among grey, roofless walls covered with sculptured reliefs and pink gtanite shrines bereft of their statued gods and goddesses, and around piles of broken masonry. I stepped pensively across a bare, undulating tract, site of a building which had been scattered to the ground and removed, to come upon an assembly of mutilated Sphinxes and idols with lioness heads. I walked with care through the spiky green bramble which grew thickly in the ruined hall of Thothmes III, and then stood in meditation under the low